A Letter to Ivan
by Blooko
Summary: Natalia writes a melancholic letter which touches on past affairs and reminisces about her memories with her brother. There will be mild mentions to the pairing Ivan x Yao.


Dear Brother…

Do you remember the winter bird?

The harsh winter blizzard where the snow battered my cheeks, transforming the pale ivory into a saturated hue of pink as it hit my face. It was cold. So cold. Colder than anything that I had ever remembered. As I turned my eyes upwards, the hazy and nebulous sky was overcast. A tint of gray to its usual, cheerful blue. The climate was imprecise, murky. Just as unpredictable as your eyes. I smelt it. The impending rain. The sharp odor of precipitation. The downpour arriving, bringing a deluge along with it. I could barely see. The air was thick with tension, unexplainable tension that tightened my skin and clicked against my jaw. Clicked against me.

I couldn't smile. The skin was stiff, the muscle tense. My eyes stung. I convinced myself that it was the relentless snow instead of an inexplicable torrent of emotions.

Snow.

It was always snowing.

The trees heaved under the weights, the cracks on their frozen bark symbolizing their effort. Mountains and dunes comprised predominantly of snow, obscuring my vision, almost painfully blinding. It was grotesquely beautiful, really.

But I was dying. I felt it. I was paralyzed, standing buried in the snow. I could feel the liquid seeping through my boots, only further reeling me in to the snowy soil. My limbs glaciated. Yet I could not move. I could not move, despite the pain that was inflicted upon me. It felt as if any moment that my skin would just crack open and ice would seep outwards, dusty ice that had been stored away in a storeroom. Unclean. Impure. I don't know what had happened, but I had become nothing more than a sculpture of ice, planted in the snow. Not intricately created, rather a mistake. An accident. It was a brusque brain break that had led to my creation. A talented sculptor, crafting my sisters and brothers, particularly _you_ , but not me. No, I was not included. I was the result of a drunken rage, a depression in emotions, a sudden decline in composure. I would never be able to be regarded the same level as you or Yekaterina. I did not deserve to be put up on a pedestal of a renowned art exhibition, however the critics may call it a raw display of emotion, seemingly knowing what they are insinuating through their flimsy statements. No, I would never be even comparable.

How did I make it through, you may ask? It was because the numbness of my fingers had dissipated.

I cannot emphasize how much that moment has changed me. It was the sun rising over the horizon after a long, lonely dark, casting away the ominous shadow. It was the developing of fractals, an infinite, unpredictable series of patterns. It was a breathtaking, disorienting tapestry of blooming colors and wonderful, fascinating, kaleidoscopic hues leaping off and on. It was the last embers of a fire, grasping desperately at the last sparks of life, a wild stalk of grass at the edge of a precipitous cliff. It was my anticipations, my expectations, my aspirations, and my desires. I wish time would've stopped. Paused. The snow would stop battering me, the moon would hang forever in the sky, the the critters in the woods would be paralyzed. Less irritating.

I had looked up, and you were there. Your face. Porcelain skin, glowing softly from the cold. Your face was so close. I could see the minuscule cracks of dryness in the corners of your cheek, a doll worn from age, but still as valuable, as beautiful as ever. Gorgeous. Desired for and by many. Your jaw was dark against your skin, prominent under the tumultuous blizzard, and your lips were thinned. Violet with cold, they were almost on par with your eyes. Your eyes. Amethyst jewels set in place, finalized by a miner dusting them off, retaining their luminous qualities. There was almost a watery texture to them, glints of history would swim between the inconspicuous cracks. Flecks of darker shades darted across your pupil, echoing the snow being presented to us. Gems. Crystalline and many-faceted, they seemed to reflect you as a person. Gems so precious and undiscovered, I wanted to excavate them and keep them for myself. It was my duty. Keep it stored away, underneath the sunlight and watching the beautiful rainbows bounce off of the surface. Yet there was something there that kept me mesmerized. Was it the conflicted emotion dancing across the surface? Was it just that tiny fraction that depicted malice and malignancy that brought that sense of nostalgia and wistfulness back to me? Perhaps it was because it reflected all of us. You. Me. Yekaterina. Boris. Eduard. Raivis. Who were once family to me and you.

I have no idea.

I just knew that that moment saved me. Saved me from the gaping abyss that was life. Snatched me from the jaws of death. Pulled me from the impending avalanche that was approaching right above my head. The warmth that had blossomed from my fingers, unfurling like a drop of paint that embellished a piece of watercolor. You were beautiful. Your intricately carved features were positioned proportionately on your face, but there was an unrecognizable expression on your face. A certain disharmony. Maybe it was the tiny twist of your lip, or the corners of your eyes. Maybe it was the thin crease between your impeccable brows. Discord. An apple picked too early. A petal plucked too soon. A leaf snatched from its frond.

I seemed to feel my heart shatter, watching that pained, albeit miniature display of confusion. The shards ricocheted off of my empty, hollow ribcage, a reverberating cavern with echoes of stalactites. I echoed your pain.

It was ironic, really. Because I had been convinced that the state of my heart had been irreversible. It was gone. It had been gone forever. Finished. A small remnant, the residue of something once healthy. A shrivelled, withered seed that had nearly no potential. Deathly and black. A ghostly, lonely figure in the distance. Funnily, it was you that awoke the primal, ancient instinct within me, and seemed to revitalize the deceased embryo lying within my chest. It grew and grew. Every smile you were kind enough to offer me, every gesture and every word you uttered to me I treasured.

You don't understand how addicting it was. The rush of sporadic emotion, rushing up my veins and sending chills across the nape of my neck. The sensation felt alien, distant, but accompanied it was a pleasurable tingle that fascinated me. I didn't know how to deal with it. Your smile lit up my day.

I will not include any more of the emotions that had passed through my body, for I think it wouldn't help my case. It was a grueling process for me to understand that forever gluing to you did not make me any better than I was.

Then, came him.

I was forced to smile and shake his hand as he visited, arm around yours. It was necessary for me to converse politely, to fix that unwavering, horrible smile on my face.

Brother, did you know? If you fake your smile that much, the corners of your mouth will begin to rot.

It was crushing.

It destroyed me.

Knowing that from the beginning, I had no chance to start with.

They say that the higher you climb, the harder you'll fall.

It was shattering. Annihilating. It butchered all my heart and soul. He consumed my hope. He eradicated any sort of fabricated chance there was. The seed that you had managed to rebuild to an extent, he had ravaged it, maimed it, exterminated and stomped it straight out of existence. Any sort of emotion I had was liquidated, mutilated. It was so unnecessary to nullify me, to maraud around and to parade his influence on you.

He extirpated me.

And you know what hurt me the most? You didn't even notice. You didn't notice the red speckling the edges of my eyeballs, wire-boards of red circuits entangling themselves, foretelling tears. Except, I had none. They had dried out like an unused well many years ago. You didn't notice my quivering hand as I served the tea.

He was beautiful, I admit.

His figure was slender, wiry, almost womanly. There was a muscular, lean set to it, a hard edge that distinguished him evenly, though. His thin arms could barely wrap around you, yet his tawney-amber eyes stared up at you with such adoration. His hair was ink colored, threads of a painting that told of ancient tales that cascaded down his shoulders like branches of a river. At first I had thought he was just another young man you had tricked with your devilish charm, but I had looked within those translucent, lucid eyes and I had seen wisdom on par with yourself, perhaps even more. They were the eyes of a warrior, retired. Exhausted from the centuries of bloodshed and camaraderie.

Of course I had analyzed him to the best of my extent. Of course, not as detailed as I did you, but I did. Knowing that I had no chance left of course had rendered me vulnerable and resentful towards him, but there was nothing I could do for myself. It was like initiation. I would not allow someone unevenly matched to be with you. It simply did not click. You did not deserve anything less than yourself.

He was definitely less than you. Anyone was less than you. No doubt.

I…

I don't really understand either.

But he made you happy. And soon I had come to realize that there was nothing I could do that wouldn't cause you discomfort or misery. I thought it was merely another fling, despite how seldom that scenario occurs. I sat across from you two at the dinner table. Yekaterina was by my side. I felt happiness thrumming through the entire room, something inconspicuous but abstracted. It was almost misplaced, I'd say. It was unfamiliar, curious, and bizarre. The foreign sensation had intruded on our dinner. It was a stranger that had sat down next to us and devoured our food, yet you two seemed to be completely permissible of what was going on. Him and you were drunk on the feeling, completely nonchalant and uncaring of the atmosphere.

You played with a wisp of his lustrous hair as you laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that so rarely crossed my path. My lifeless, departed heart seemed to stir in its grave once more.

His smile was a reflection. It was nearly abashed, the shy, subtle smile that obscured something deeper, more fiery underneath. He was undoubtedly a parallel of you. It was like watching fire and ice clash in a questionable duality, coexisting yet eating each other away.

I had looked away. You were completely oblivious to me, as per usual.

I was overthinking again.

Anyways.

Brother, I wish the gift of happiness upon you. May you live in harmony, despite the unimaginable nature of that statement. It's quite unreasonable, yet I wished that you would experience tranquility eventually. To live in a world where you feel safe and secure, and your hand belonged to someone who shared mutualistic emotions to you as you did them and reciprocate your sacrifices. I hope that we would eventually be able to walk in the woods, listen to the mellifluous songs of the critters as we converse about whatever had come to our minds, just like the olden times. It was hard to acquiesce, but persistence in this scenario will get me nowhere.

Be happy, brother.

Natalia


End file.
